Love/Hate
by Brynn McK
Summary: Manticore taught Max to deal with physical wounds. But how does she cope with emotional ones?


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Title:Love/Hate

Author: Brynn McK

Feedback: Yes please!Here or at tmeyerswa@yahoo.com

Spoilers: first season, through AJBAC

Rating: PG-13 or R for language and angst

Disclaimer:I don't own any of them, this isn't for profit.

A/N: I know I'm jumping on the bandwagon.But since I've already challenged Max physically, I wanted to challenge her emotionally.And the finale worked perfectly to put her in that place.So that's my excuse.One other little thing.At one point Max mentions a character named Jasen.He's from another fic of mine, "Black Sheep" (coincidentally, the one where Max gets challenged physically).So check it out if you haven't, or at least know that I'm not pulling that name out of my ass, but he's not canon either.Also, thanks to Nevermore for giving me a digital kick in the ass, as it were, to get me writing this. :)

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Renfro couldn't contain a slow smile of triumph as she looked through the small window at X5-452 slumped and shackled on the narrow regulation cot.She was healing well; they'd been able to keep her drugged most of the time to prevent her from hurting herself during the healing process, either accidentally or intentionally.She had a nasty scar, but she was strong.She'd recover.The time had come for reprogramming.

Her smile twisted derisively as she remembered Lydecker's methods of reindoctrination.He was a man of such limited vision, such single-minded military unoriginality._Rat, plague, traitor, indeed,_ she thought scornfully.She didn't think for a minute that pseudo-Nazi crap would work on X5-452, at least not in any permanent way.Fortunately, she had a degree in psychology and realized there was more to breaking a subject than simple word-image association.She had her own plan for X5-452.And no matter how hard the girl fought, Renfro was confident that in the end, she'd break.

They all did.

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Max shoveled food mechanically into her mouth, not noticing or caring about either its gray-green color or its supercharged nutritional value.She thought that once she might have enjoyed eating, relished a good meal.Now she just lost herself in the repetition of spoon to mouth and tried not to feel naked.

She sat alone in a corner of the mess hall, and it was obvious that the others had been given orders not to speak to her.That was nothing new; she was just glad to be allowed in the mess hall at all.It was good to be around people—real people—again, even if she couldn't talk to them.Even if they stared at her, and tried not to, and stared anyway.Hence the naked feeling.She did some watching of her own, couldn't seem to draw her eyes away from where the X-7s were seated, across the hall, clustered close at a single table.They didn't seem to be talking much, but she remembered hearing somewhere that they'd been designed with hive minds.Maybe they could communicate telepathically or something.Because they were definitely communicating—they were pretty good at covering, but she'd been in their position and she knew how and where to look for furtive grins, quirks of eyebrows that spoke volumes.

At first the shock of seeing them, those echoes of her and her siblings, had shaken her badly every time.But the feeling had dulled over time; she felt almost like a ghost anyway, drifting the hallways with everyone pretending not to see her, so there didn't seem to be any conflict with her current self and her younger self occupying the same space.Mostly she just watched them and envied their closeness.Remembered a time when she had had a family, when they had all been together.Been alive.

And there it was.She was surprised she'd gone so long without thinking of it.She knew she would have thought of it often enough anyway, but apparently someone had decided to give her a little help.Her room was tiny, barely large enough for her cot and space to walk around it.And there were three images hanging on the metal walls: one of her brother Ben, lifeless on the forest floor with his neck at an unnatural angle; one of her brother Zack, covered in blood and slumped over a body she assumed was hers; and one of herself after they'd killed the Nomlie, a streak of blood marring her cheek.In the beginning, she had clawed her way out of drugged sleep only to be greeted by the life-sized faces of her dead brothers and herself at one of the darkest moments of her life.The shock had nearly unhinged her right then and there, and then she'd heard Zack's voice in her head, as he had whispered in her ear while she lay unconscious:_Fight them, Maxie_.

So she'd tried, for him.She'd shut her eyes against the images of what she had done, who she had been, and tried to cling to something stable.But she wasn't finding much.She hadn't realized how much of a bedrock Zack's implacable presence had been until it was gone.She felt like she'd had her legs knocked out from under her and she was falling, always falling, always trying to catch something and never succeeding.And each time she opened her eyes, there they were.Ben, the poet, the storyteller, the mystic, whose pulse had slowed and stopped under the fingers that had snapped his neck.Zack, her big brother as if he defined the term, the weight of the world on his shoulders, proving with his last desperate act that he wasn't nearly as tough as he'd led them to believe, that even he couldn't always practice what he preached.And herself, the wild animal inside her, and the face of her would-be killer as well.Trapped in a tiny room with all of them looming over her.

She might have slept to escape it, but they didn't let her.At least, not much.For a while there had been a guard posted outside her door whose sole duty was to wake her up every time she fell asleep.Held almost motionless by restraints welded into steel, she couldn't defend herself.Time passed incalculably.She was engineered to go without sleep, but not for interminable periods of time.When they did let her drift, her body scrambled to catch up on lost REM sleep, and her dreams were vivid and often horrifying.Dreams where she was being hunted or, worse, where she was the hunter, and she woke with her hands twisted in the sheets, trying to clean off nonexistent blood.And then there were times when she woke up with a hauntingly familiar scent in her nose, taste in her mouth, the feel of arms around her and a voice slipping away in her head, overwhelmed with an aching sense of loss.She didn't dare chase the memories because she distantly recalled using Lydecker's memory-blocking technique as soon as they'd begun questioning her, and knew that she had forgotten deliberately and for a reason.But the emptiness remained, like phantom pain from a missing limb, and she couldn't help but wonder what she'd lost.Meanwhile, the images maintained their constant vigil.

Max began to wonder if maybe she was going just the slightest bit crazy.

But then, almost immediately, things improved.Brin came to see her one day, just sat silently by her bed and watched her, then got up and left without a word.She'd returned almost every day since, and they'd spoken a little more each time, and slowly she was starting to rekindle the connection with her sister.Things were different, no question, but Max scrambled for even the tiniest hint of contact.

Brin began to train with her, carefully, mindful of Max's recent wound.As they ducked and weaved and grappled on the mat, Max felt alive for the first time since her return.A few days later, tracking a rabbit through the forest with Brin, she remembered out of nowhere what Jasen had told her, however long ago: "You X-5s left Manticore too soon."Brin was so strong, and Max was so tired of feeling weak.She couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to have them all together again, burnished in whatever new regimen Brin had obviously gone through.She banished the thought almost as soon as it came, and Zack's voice shouted _Fight them Maxie!_, but the idea only skittered into a corner and refused to disappear.Later, she was surprised to look down and discover the rabbit dead in her blood-smeared hands, fur and flesh torn.Deliberately, she drew a line of blood along her cheek, testing.

_Maybe this is who I am_.

Of course she knew it was all part of the plan to re-program her.And with Zack constantly yelling at her to fight them, she couldn't exactly give in.But if she gained from it, it wasn't giving in, was it?If it meant all of them together again, strong, like they were meant to be?On the outside, she had killed one brother, failed to rescue her sister, and as good as killed yet another brother.She'd been responsible for his death, and sometimes she felt like his heart was so heavy in her that even her genetically enhanced body wasn't strong enough to carry it.She couldn't stand to have another death on her hands.And if they all came back here, at least they'd be safe.They could protect each other.If they were together, newly trained and hardened, who could stand in their way?

She tried, so hard, not to think it, but it kept sliding around in her mind anyway, seductive and insidious.She left the mess hall on autopilot and returned to her room.Looked at the images, realized she had come to welcome the familiarity of them.

_Fight them, Maxie!_

This time, she shouted back silently, all of her frustration and hurt focused in a mental scream._Like you did, Zack?By killing myself?By denying who I am?We're the hunters, we're not supposed to be hunted!Maybe we belong here!_She regretted it instantly, as if he could hear her, and a quiet, watchful corner of her was horrified by the force behind her argument against him.She mumbled out loud, "I'm sorry, Zack, I'm sorry, I'll try, I'm just so tired and they won't let me sleep and I miss you…"Realizing she was babbling, and whining, she clapped her mouth shut.But Zack's voice had fallen silent.

She stretched out on the bed.She didn't want to think anymore, didn't want to fight, just wanted to be with the people she loved.Maybe Zack wouldn't notice if she took just a few minutes off from being the strong, vigilant soldier.Maybe they'd let her sleep this time.Maybe she'd wake up and it would all be a long, bad dream.

She closed her eyes and welcomed oblivion.

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Again, Renfro watched X5-452 through the bulletproof glass, watched the way her brow was creased and her lips tight, even in sleep.It was taking a little longer than she'd expected, but that would only make her eventual success sweeter.She turned to her companion.

"She'll never be useful offensively against the others.But once her reindoctrination is complete, you won't find an operative more determined to recover them and bring them home."She smiled, delighted as a child with a new toy."I really think she's going to be one of our best agents.Let her sleep—two hours, no more.She's going to earn it."

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It was nearly three in the morning when Logan realized he could no longer make the lines on the screen resolve themselves into any kind of coherent shapes.He sighed and sat back, tugged off his glasses and rubbed tired eyes with cramped fingers.He was doing this too much lately, he knew, but he couldn't seem to stop himself.He'd make a firm promise to spend only two hours, or three, and then the next thing he knew it was the middle of the night and he hated himself, because the nights were the worst and once he started thinking, he couldn't sleep.The tranquility he'd always felt in these wee hours was shattered by the knowledge that there was one less shadow out there, one less black cat prowling the streets.

He shook himself and wondered how long it would be before he could stop his thoughts from spiraling to her every time he let his guard down.It had been two months.Two months tonight, which was why he'd buried himself in his work with even more dedication than usual.But he had to come up for air eventually, and when he did the silence of his apartment pressed on him until he thought he would scream.

_Stop it,_ he told himself for the hundredth time, and forced his arms to propel him purposefully towards the kitchen.He still used his wheelchair most of the time, saving the exoskeleton for when he really needed it.Repairs were expensive and somehow just knowing he had the _option _of walking made being in the chair easier.From the outside, he might have looked at it philosophically, seen the great cosmic justice in having gained one part of his life back in exchange for losing another.But as he was on the inside, he didn't think about it at all as he reached for the bottle and poured dark amber liquid into a glass.

Initially, he'd thought that his reduced financial circumstances were going to be a problem.Then he'd discovered that Jack Daniels burned in exactly the same way that single-malt scotch did, numbed fingers and toes and heart just as effectively.And was a hell of a lot cheaper.So that was his drink of choice these days, though he had enough of himself left to ration it, save it for special occasions.And this, he thought, definitely qualified.The first gulp slid down like fire.In his line of work, he dealt with a lot of people who'd lost loved ones, so he'd thought it was only fair to educate himself, and had read book after book on the grieving process and moving on and coping.Which, he was rapidly discovering, didn't mean fuck-all when you were living it.Besides, wasn't Whiskey one of the Seven Stages of Grief?_If it's not, it should be,_ he thought as another swallow made his fingertips start to tingle.

He wheeled partway back out into the living room, drink cradled in his hand, savoring it.The ends of Syl's blond hair dangled over the arm of the sofa, sprawled in the same careless fashion that her body undoubtedly was.He'd learned that even though she didn't have to sleep, Syl _liked_ to sleep.A _lot_.And she seemed to store it up somehow, too; last week he'd sent her out on a stakeout and she'd gone six days, barely moving, never so much as a yawn.Then she'd come back and slept for fourteen hours, just for the heck of it.

Krit was out doing whatever he did at night.He was practically nocturnal, disappearing around midnight most nights and returning in time to catch an hour of sleep before lunch.Logan never knew what Krit did on those late-night excursions, and he never asked.As long as he didn't discover any large stashes of cash or drugs around the place, what Krit did was Krit's business.

Lydecker, not surprisingly, had left town not long after their return from Manticore.Running, so much like Zack in a way that Logan felt sorry for him.But Krit and Syl had stayed, though they'd never asked and Logan had never offered.It was instinct for all of them, blind puppies squirming together for comfort.For two days they had sat in silence, hardly moving, stunned.Somewhat to Logan's surprise, there had been no talk of a rescue.He'd been relieved, and ashamed of that relief, and relieved again in an endless cycle.But they had no way of knowing if Zack was alive, and they'd lost too many of their tiny family already.They'd needed time to regroup, to deal with their current losses before they went chasing new ones.

Eventually, they'd settled into a sort of tentative domesticity, about as far from the nuclear family as you could get.Logan began sending them out on Eyes Only missions because they seemed to need something to do, to chase the shadows of dead siblings from their eyes for a little while at least.He discovered his gourmet cooking skills were pretty much wasted on Krit, who appeared to live on cheeseburgers and the occasional bucket of fried chicken.Syl was more appreciative, but he couldn't play chess with her because behind those innocent blue eyes was a phenomenal head for strategy (not to mention an encyclopedic knowledge of weaponry), and even Logan could only stand to lose so many times.Which was just as well, because chess reminded him of brown eyes and smug smile and he found he couldn't really focus on the game anyway.

So he spent his days with Krit watching hockey on TV and his nights with Syl, tapping away at the keyboard while she read or meditated or practiced gymnastics in the hallway.To be honest, it was a relief to have Krit gone sometimes, especially at night, which had always been her time, and he looked so much like her that sometimes Logan couldn't stand to look at him, he was so tired of crying and aching and feeling helpless.The scientific side of his brain jumped automatically to speculation on the differences and similarities in X-5 DNA before he remembered that thoughts of DNA led invariably to thoughts of Manticore and strategy and dark forests and blood and her smile when she said his name and—

Logan looked down in surprise at the feel of whiskey running over his hand, realized his body had jerked involuntarily, the way it did sometimes when his emotions were on overload.Some nights were definitely better than others.His eyes flickered to his office and paused on the shredder poised neatly on the edge of his desk above the garbage can.And because everything in his apartment reminded him of her, he thought about shredding the picture that Lydecker had sent him, about the streak of blood on that young, feral face, and thought that the greatest tragedy was that he had never really told her.Not that he loved her.She must have known that.But that he didn't hate or fear her past, that she'd triumphed over it."I know who you are," he'd told her, and, "I know, but you got moves."Vague.Inadequate.He wanted her to know how proud he was of her, to have grown up with that darkness inside her and still been able to exude the quiet joy he'd seen right before she kissed him, to love her family and friends with such selfless devotion.It was too late, now, but he screamed mentally at her anyway, the only sort of screaming he allowed himself these days.He'd never believed in an afterlife, but now he couldn't quite convince himself that a life force so strong could be completely erased from the world.So he shouted at her, putting his heart into it, hoping that whatever part of her might still be hanging around would hear him:

_You're not that girl anymore.You hear me?You beat it.I know you, and I know that.You're not that girl anymore._

He laughed a little at his own ridiculous fancies, bitterly and quietly, so as not to disturb Syl.If any part of her _was_ still around, he hoped she'd found better things to do than hang around waiting for him to make belated confessions of his faith in her.Staring into his glass, he suddenly found that he'd lost his taste for the whiskey.He swirled it around and around aimlessly, listened to Syl's breathing, and tried not to think.

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Max woke with a start, that forgotten, familiar voice echoing in her head:_You're not that girl anymore.You're not that girl anymore._Her eyes flew, as they always did, to the images on the walls, her dead brothers and her own face, the face that had nearly killed her, that she had tried to become again._You're not that girl anymore._She forced her eyelids down like shutters to hold in the tears, gripped the sheets, and tried with everything in her to believe it.

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A/N, Part 2: So, judging by the reviews I've been getting (and thank you so much to those of you who have taken the time!!!), I think I may have been a little misleading here.This isn't the first chapter of a longer fic; it's meant to stand on its own.I don't have any plans for adding to it, though I suppose if I get a great idea, I may revisit it.But basically, I just wanted to explore what _might_ break Max (not necessarily what would or what will), and how Renfro might go about it—not what happens next.Sorry if anyone's disappointed; I hope you enjoyed the fic anyway. :)


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